[2] Among Ponomariov's notable later results are first place at the Donetsk Zonal tournament in 1998,[3] 5/7 score in the European Club Cup 2000 (including a victory over then-FIDE World Champion Alexander Khalifman), joint first with 7½/9 at Torshavn 2000, 8½/11 for Ukraine in the 2001 Chess Olympiad in Istanbul, winning gold medal on board 2, and first place with 7/10 in the 2001 Governor's Cup in Kramatorsk.

There were plans for him to play a fourteen-game match against Kasparov in Yalta in September 2003,[citation needed] the winner of which would go on to play the winner of a match between Vladimir Kramnik and Péter Lékó as part of the so-called "Prague Agreement" to reunify the World Chess Championship (from 1993 until 2006 there were two world chess championships).

On Ponomariov's 20th birthday, October 11, 2003, he became the first high-profile player to forfeit a game because of his mobile phone ringing during play.

This happened in round one of the European Team Chess Championship in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, when Ponomariov was playing Black against Swedish GM Evgenij Agrest.

In 2004, Ponomariov won the gold medal at the 2004 Chess Olympiad held in Calvià, Spain, with the Ukrainian team.

Ponomariov defeated Fritz under tournament conditions, at the 2nd Festival Internacional de Ajedrez Man-Machine in Bilbao, Spain.

Ponomariov lost in the first round, in a six-game match against Sergei Rublevsky, and thus did not qualify for the 2007 World Championship tournament.

Ponomariov got one more second place by tie-break that year in the 2009 Chess World Cup, where he reached the final against Israeli Boris Gelfand.

In September of that year, Ukraine won the gold once more at the 2010 Chess Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk with players Vasyl Ivanchuk, Ruslan Ponomariov, Pavel Eljanov, Zahar Efimenko, and Alexander Moiseenko.